


The Culinary Catastrophe

by Juno999



Series: After the Storm (Post-canon ASOUE) [5]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Comfort, Cute, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Happy, Just another happy quiglet, Post-Canon, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25893409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juno999/pseuds/Juno999
Summary: “Do you think we can use the ingredients straight out of the fridge, or do we need to somehow prepare them first?” Violet asked, reading through the recipe card.“I have no idea.”“Have you ever baked anything before?”“Not really,” Quigley replied, reaching for the bag of flour.Violet and Quigley are baking a cake for Sunny's birthday. That's it, that's the tweet...
Relationships: Violet Baudelaire/Quigley Quagmire
Series: After the Storm (Post-canon ASOUE) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540939
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The Culinary Catastrophe

Sunny’s fifth birthday was fast approaching - that year it was going to fall on a Sunday. On the Friday before her two older siblings and Quagmire triplets gathered in the living room of their shared apartment. The five of them wanted to discuss the options they had and come up with a plan for Sunny’s birthday.

“The gift should be easy,” Klaus said, adjusting his glasses. “There is a new cook book, that she has been eyeing for a while. I can pick it up at the bookstore.”

“We should also get her a new set of mixing bowls,” Violet added. “The old ones are showing their wear.”

“So we are good for gifts,” Duncan concluded, making notes in his commonplace book. “But there should be something else we could do to celebrate Sunny.”

“We could go to the movies,” Isadora said hesitantly.

“There isn’t anything interesting playing at the moment,” Klaus sighed. "And I doubt Bea would be able to sit though the full movie.”

“How about a hike then?” Quigley suggested. “The weather is supposed to be nice on the weekend.”

“If the weather is nice the trails will be crowded,” his brother disagreed.

“No necessarily. I have found a few less known trails on my maps recently, they should not be as busy…”

“You are just suggesting a hike, cause that’s what you want to do,” Isadora interrupted him.

“I like being outdoors,” Quigley shrugged.

“I promise next weekend we can go for a hike,” Violet said. “And you can show me all the new trails you found on the maps then. But for now, let’s focus on Sunny.”

“What if we had afamily dinner?” Isadora had an idea.

“Don’t we have one everyday?” Violet didn’t understand her point.

“Yes, but instead of Sunny making dinner for us, we can make one all together,” she explained. “Like we can have a culinary master class. Sunny can teach us how to prepare a simple course.”

“And we can go to the farmer’s market and pick up fresh produce for the dinner,” Klaus carried on. “I like this! I think Sunny would really enjoy our family cooking class.”

By the time Sunday morning rolled around, everyone in the Baudelaire-Quagmire household knew their roles for the day. Duncan and Klaus accompanied Sunny to the farmer’s market, Isadora and Beatrice went to pick up her gifts, and Violet and Quigley were tasked with making her a surprise birthday cake. Two of them gathered around the kitchen counter reading through the simple recipe Klaus had found for them. Violet tied her hair up in a ribbon and Quigley rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, but neither one knew where to start.

“Do you think we can use the ingredients straight out of the fridge, or do we need to somehow prepare them first?” Violet asked, reading through the recipe card.

“I have no idea.”

“Have you ever baked anything before?”

“Not really,” Quigley replied, reaching for the bag of flour.

“You didn’t cook together with your parents?”

The question caught Quigley off guard. The bag slipped out of his hands and fell on the floor, creating a small white cloud around him. He coughed, trying to shake the flour out of his hair and off his shirt.

“My parents were not very well versed in the kitchen…” he said after a pause. “Our butler would usually cook for us. And on the days he had off, we would have frozen meals or order take out.”

“I shouldn't have brought it up,” Violet apologized, as she grabbed a paper towel and tried to wipe the flour off his face. Quigley's expression was hard to read, but she knew that even after all these years the loss of his parents still haunted him. Just as much her own loss did. “It’s supposed to get less painful with time, isn’t it?”

“I’ll let you know when it does.”

Violet wrapped her arms around Quigley’s waist, and pressed her forehead onto his chest. His arm rested comfortably on her shoulder. Whenever the painful memories resurfaced, they always found comfort in each other’s presence. They remained like that for a sometime, until the ticking clock reminded them about the task at hand.

“Sunny won’t be happy to see what we’ve done with the kitchen,” Violet noted, looking around.

“I’ll make sure to clean to up, before she comes back,” Quigley finally brought the bagto the counter. “What about you? Have you ever baked a cake before?”

“I once helped father make my mother’s birthday cake,” Violet recalled. “But he was the one, who knew the recipe and I was just following his directions.”

“Well, let’s hope the cake recipe Klaus chose is an easy one.”

Quigley swept the floor, while Violet brought all the required products together. The recipe seemed simple enough, but there were many small details, that would easy to miss. First they mixed up the measuring cups, not sure which type to use for which ingredients. Then the batter would not blend together, as the butter was still too cold and the eggs came straight from the fridge. While Violet worked on beating them with sugar, Quigley measured outdry ingredients. He discovered that they were out of baking powder and only had baking soda. He settled for using the latter, not quite sure of the difference between the two. At least they didn’t confuse sugar with salt, and set the oven to the right temperature. Once the batter was in the pans and in the oven, the two of them moved on to the icing.

“I don’t know how Sunny does it,” Violet confessed. “I feel like my head is spinning, from all the steps we had to follow.”

Quigley nodded in agreement. “I don’t think I could ever do this on my own. There are just too many details.”

“At least we get to work on this together,” she smiled, watching the mixer beat together butter, sugar and vanilla extract.

“Two heads are better than one.”

Even with two of them working on it, the cake still turned out to be a disaster.One of the pans, got overfilled and the cake batter spilled out of it on the racks below. The other cake layer turned out cracked on top. Violet hastily put the both layers together with raspberry jam and icing, and then piled more buttercream on top. That was not the best idea - the cakes didn’t cool down properly yet. They both watched, as the buttercream icing melted between the two layers of the cake and the top one started to slide down. Quigley tried to catch it, but it was still too hot and he dropped it on the counter, breaking that layer in half.

“I wonder, if at least it tastes good,” he said, blowing on his burned fingers.

“Only, one way to find out,” Violet grabbed a piece of cake out of the broken cake layer. It was still too hot. She blew on it to cool it down.

“Wait!” Quigley cautioned. “What if we made something poisonous…”

“Then one of us will have to call an ambulance.”

Before she could taste the cake herself, Quigley caught her hand and brought it to his mouth to take a bite. A few moments later, he was still standing.

“It’s pretty good actually, just looks ugly.”

“Really?”

“Try for yourself,” he passed her another piece of the broken cake.

It did taste pretty good. The cake was light and crumbly, not too sugary, and combined with tart jam and sweet buttercream icing, it created a great flavour.

“All we need to do now is to figure out, how to make it look better,” Quigley said, but Violet noticed that he was looking at her rather intently.

“What is it?” she wondered.

“You have some icing on you face,” he smiled. “Let me get it for you.”

He leaned closer, reached out his hand to her cheek to brush it off, but instead kissed the corner of her lips.

“Was there really icing on my face, or did you just make an excuse to kiss me,” she laughed once he pulled away.

“Maybe…”

“Well, there is really no need for that.”

She stepped forward, closing the distance between them again. Their kiss tasted like sweet vanilla buttercream with a tart hint of raspberry jam.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Alright y'all, I said I had a happy Quiglet in the works and here it is.  
> It's also like two in the morning, my time, but I can't fall asleep, so here I am (insomnia is strong with this one, with me, not with the fanfic...) Hence, it might be a bit unpolished, I'll edit it a bit more later, and hopefully catch some of my typos... (why so many typos, why...)  
> Anyway, its cute and simple, and just pure sweet domestic fluff. I love it y'all!🥰  
> I had this idea, while watching the cake fail fix it videos. I thought it would be really cute.  
> I am kinda trying out a new format for this one, so let me know what you think. I dunno how I feel about it yet...  
> Hope you all enjoy and thank you for reading! 💜


End file.
